Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children aged under five nearly doubled last year because of chaos caused by the US-led occupation, a United Nations expert said yesterday.

Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food, said more than a quarter of Iraqi children do not have enough to eat and 7.7% are acutely malnourished - a jump from 4% recorded in the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion.

Reporting to the commission's headquarters in Geneva, the Swiss professor claimed the situation was "a result of the war led by coalition forces".

If confirmed, the estimates would be an indictment of an occupation which was supposed to improve the lives of a population crushed by Saddam Hussein.

Billions of dollars-worth of aid flowed into Iraq from the fall of Saddam Hussein regime's in April 2003. But the regime's collapse and widespread violence destroyed jobs and made aid distribution difficult.

Prof Ziegler based some of his analysis on a US study in October 2004 which estimated that up to 100,000 extra Iraqis, mostly women and children, had died since the invasion than would have been expected to before the war.

"Most died as a result of the violence, but many others died as a result of the increasingly difficult living conditions, reflected in increasing child mortality levels," he said.

Due to the war in Iraq, more children are suffering from malnutrition and you don't hear any of the right to life people or Bush trying to do anything to help these kids. No, they would rather waste their time and efforts to keep a human vegetable alive.
-Eva